It’s been three years since we last left Captain James Tiberius Kirk and his young, hip, sexy rebooted USS Enterprise crew sifting through the charred rubble of the embarrassingly-flawed and intelligence-insulting Star Trek Into Darkness. When the first J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek feature was released in 2009, it thrilled me as both a lover of well-executed blockbuster entertainment and someone who has grown up enjoying the adventures of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and company because its creative and commercial success ensured that future generations would have their own Enterprise to follow into the cinematic cosmos. Into Darkness pretty much undid every detectable trace of that progress in the span of a mere two hours.

The thought of the sequels that would inevitably follow filled me with the sort of trepidation one often experiences as they prepare to enter an old house that has been abandoned since the previous owners were horribly murdered twenty years ago….

Remember when that video was released with Star Wars: The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams standing in front of a full-size X-wing to announce a contest for charity in which the winner would score a walk-on role in the movie? Well, those of you who prefer the Star Trek universe now have the same opportunity.

It’s been announced that a similar contest is now live that will lead to someone winning a walk-on role in the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, the rebooted movie franchise’s trilogy-maker. Better yet, those who don’t win the big prize can still win a set visit. The contest is done in a crowdfunding style, where you obtain entries in the contest by purchasing perks, which is a big plus. Instead of blindly throwing $10 in and hoping you win, $10 gets you a digital badge and 100 chances to win. $50 gets you a digital thank you video from the cast and crew of the movie and 500 entries. $10,000 to $15,000 gets you props from the three most recent Trek movies and 100,000 to 150,000 entries. But good luck competing with the person who drops $100,000 for a replica captain’s chair and 1,000,000 entries.

You can get all the details about the contest below, and also watch a video of the cast (Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, and newcomer Idris Elba) announcing the contest, which, by the way, ends with a little dance party.

Recently while clarifying comments he had made, Star Trek star and Star Trek 3 writer Simon Pegg appeared to reveal that the official title would be Star Trek Beyond, though it was unconfirmed at the time.

Now director Justin Lin has confirmed that Beyond will indeed be the title of the trilogy maker in the rebooted movie franchise. Lin confirmed the title on the Twitter along with the message “Let the next Starfleet voyage begin!” and an image of a Starfleet patch.

After directing four of the seven Fast and Furious films and two episodes of HBO’s True Detective, Justin Lin will now be working on helming Star Trek 3. Much of the plot of the film, written bySimon Pegg and Doug Jung, has been a secret, though there are rumors that it could be Enterprise’s five-year mission.

We won’t know much about the film for quite a while, but Lin, who was at the TCL Chinese Theater to place his hands on cement, was able to talk a little bit about the film. Check out what he had to say below.

Last week, a rumor surfaced that Idris Elba would play a villainous Klingon in the untitled third Star Trek film

Now, since this was a rumor, everyone’s favorite game “will he or won’t he play said character” was being played. Well, the game is over, as Star Trek 3 lead writer and film star Simon Pegg confirmed that Elba won’t play a Klingon, but doesn’t deny the rumors that the Luther star has been approached for a role in the new movie. More after the jump, including a video of Pegg addressing the rumors.

It’s being reported that Pacific Rim and Luther star Idris Elba has entered into negotiations to play the villain in the upcoming Star Trek 3.

Who exactly Elba would be playing is not yet known at the moment, though there have been some whispers that Klingons could be the main bad guys for this latest entry in the franchise. Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions would not confirm or deny.

Simon Pegg, the star of movies like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz who plays Scotty in the most recent Star Trek movies, is set to co-write Star Trek 3 along with Dark Blue creator and writer Doug Jung.

Fast and Furious director Justin Linrecently took over as director on the movie, after J.J. Abrams moved on to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and previous director Roberto Orciexited the project. Both Abrams and Orci remain producers.

Earlier this month, we learned that Roberto Orci would no longer be directing Star Trek 3. A shortlist of people to replace Orci, who co-wrote with Alex Kurtzman the first two Star Trek installments of the rebooted universe, was revealed, but no official word… until now.

Justin Lin, who was on said shortlist, has been tapped to directed Star Trek 3 for Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions, according to an exclusive from Deadline.

Ten days ago, it was announced that Roberto Orci would not be making his directorial debut on the tentatively-titled Star Trek 3, thus endangering any hope that the movie would be ready for release in time for the franchise’s 50th anniversary in 2016. Sources close to the production indicated that Paramount Pictures was hoping to snag Edgar Wright, who famously departed Marvel Studios’ long-in-development Ant-Manback in May and was later replaced by Peyton Reed, to replace the inexperienced Orci in the director’s chair on what looks to be an important motion picture on several levels.

It looks as if any hope of retaining the services of the Shaun of the Dead/The World’s End filmmaker has proven to be a pipe dream because a promising shortlist of potential directors for Star Trek 3 has been leaked and Wright’s name is not among them. According to Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline, Paramount has narrowed their selection of possible directorial pinch hitters to Rupert Wyatt, Duncan Jones, Daniel Espinosa, Justin Lin, and Morten Tyldum.

Back in May, it was announced that Roberto Orci would be directingStar Trek 3 and the Transformers writer even dropped off as executive producer for the Power Rangers movie to focus on the Trek sequel.

Now, Deadline is reporting that Orci, who was to pick up where franchise director J.J. Abrams left off (when he moved on to Star Wars: The Force Awakens), will no longer be directing the third Star Trek movie, but he will stay on as producer.